Our Story
by Pop the Question
Summary: Edward and Bella share the story of how they got engaged to their children throughout the years.


Pop the Question Contest Entry

Title: Our story

Word Count (without the A/Ns and header): 4253

Pairing: Edward/Bella; AH

Rating: M

Summary: Edward and Bella share the story of how they got engaged to their children throughout the years.

Warnings (if any): Language.

Disclaimer: I do not own Twilight, Stephanie Myers does, but the idea and telling of the tale below is a creature of my own making.

Big thank you to two wonderful women who took the time to beta this for me. Both of you were extremely helpful and greatly appreciated.

Thanks to my best friend for letting me steal how she was proposed to.

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**Our Story**

"Mommy, mommy," Mason said as he walked into his parents room with his two year old sister, Noelle following behind.

"What baby?" Bella asked as she sat folding laundry on her bed. She watched as her five year old son helped his sister onto the bed before following her up. Smiling as she watched her husband watching the children as well.

"Tell us again," he told her. "Tell us again how papa asked you to be his."

"Again?" Bella asked through a giggle. "But, Papa just told you the story yesterday."

"Again," Noelle squeaked out with a hand clap. "Again."

"Ok my silly little pumpkin, I will tell you both again how papa asked me to be his," she told them, settling back on the bed against the headboard with her children cuddled against her.

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"_Am I going to see you tonight?" Edward asked as he kissed Bella's hand that he was holding. _

"_I don't know," She told him. "I'm supposed to go visit Rosalie this weekend to meet her new boyfriend, Emmett. Mom and dad want to get an early start, so I may not be able to come out tonight." _

"_That sucks," he said with a pout _

"_I know baby," she told him kissing his lips softly. "But soon we won't have to ask for permission, soon we will be at college, and we can spend all our free time together without parents." _

"_I can't wait baby girl, I can't wait," he said pulling her in for a kiss. _

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Bella smiled to herself as she thought wistfully about that time in her life. It was a time where she was scared out of her mind, but Edward always knew the right words to make her feel better about any situation they had gotten themselves in. Over the years there had been plenty. They had met when they were three years old at the park. Their parents had arranged a play date for them, and from that point on all their mothers could talk about was how cute they were together.

Bella and Edward had grown up knowing that their mothers wanted them together. However, when they both started dating different people in their freshman year of high School neither sets of parents were happy. It wasn't until the summer before junior year that they both realized that they truly wanted to be together. Their relationship, like many young couples, had its ups and downs. They broke up two months before they started college and stayed apart till the summer before their sophomore year when they each realized that they couldn't be without the other. They were inseparable after that.

"Not that stuff, momma," six -year old Noelle said, pulling her mother out of her own thoughts. "Skip the mushy part about going to Aunt Rosalie's and get to the part where papa asked."

"Yeah momma," three- year old Anthony said. "Skip mushy tuff."

"Okay, my growing-up too fast babies. I'll skip the mushy stuff."

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"_I love you, Bella, Edward said as they sat on the bed in his dorm room. "No matter what the test says, I will be here. I will love you and our baby, forever." _

"_I know," she said through tears. "But we are too young. We are only twenty and about to graduate college. We aren't ready for a baby." _

"_I know us Bella. We will still accomplish everything we set out to baby or not," he told her. "I will become a doctor, and you my beautiful girl will become a teacher and mold those young minds." _

"_How can you be so calm about this?" she inquired._

"_Because, I love you, and I want a family with you," he told her as a matter of fact. "It just might be starting a little earlier than we wanted, but having a baby with you will be an amazing thing." _

"_I wish I had as much faith as you," she told him as she checked the time again. _

"_I have enough faith for the both of us," he said. "Bella, trust me when I tell you that I'm scared too, but I know what I want. You and a baby are what I want, Sure it would be ideal to have waited till med school was over .Hopefully, by then we would have been living together, but I'm not going anywhere and we will face this together. Always." _

"_Always," she replied before getting up and going into the bathroom to check the test._

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Bella felt tears in her eyes. She remembered how scared she had been when she had to go and tell Edward that she thought she was pregnant. They had been so careful to be safe, only making love once without protection just to see what it would feel like. It had felt wonderful, and even though they both agreed that they needed to use protection, it was a night neither of them had forgotten. Edwards still talks about it often.

"I came before the wedding?" twelve-year old Mason asked his mother. He was old enough now to understand how some of these things worked.

"No." Bella told him with a shake of her head.

"But momma took a test before you were married," Noelle stated.

"True." Edward said.

"But, that doesn't mean that Mason was born before we got married," Bella added.

"I don't understand," six-year old Anthony said.

"Just listen, babies." Bella told them.

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"_What do you mean you're pregnant?" Renee said. _

"_Just that mom, I'm pregnant as in going to have a baby," Bella told her. "Edward's baby." _

"_Well, I sure as hell hope it's Edwards." Charlie added. _

"_How far along are you dear?" Esme asked the mother of her grandchild._

"_Six weeks," Edward answered as he gripped Bella's hand tighter. _

"_Six weeks," Renee repeated. "How in the hell did this happen?" _

"_Well…." Bella started to answer. _

"_That was rhetorical, Bella." Renee said sternly. "So, Edward do you plan to marry my daughter now that you have both thrown away whatever future you had planned?"_

"_Someday," Edward said softly. "Right now, we want to focus on finishing our senior year and then see if I get into medical school." _

"_Oh, so my daughter is going to have to be an unwed single mother while you pursue your medical career? Figures!" Renee said angrily._

"_What exactly does that mean, Renee?" Esme asked angrily. _

"_It means that this is as much his problem as it is Bella's. Why should she have to give up her dreams so your son can fulfill his?" she asked coming toe to toe with the Cullen matriarch. _

"_So, my son should just give up his dreams and what- get a job at McDonalds?" Esme asked._

"_No one is giving up anything," Bella said angrily "Edward and I have talked about this. We have decided that we want to get married later, after we both finish school, and for Edward that means medical school. We will be a family. We are a family," she said placing her hand on her stomach. _

"_A piece of paper won't make us a family, Mrs. Swan," Edward said. "This is our life, and we have decided that we want to wait to get married, it doesn't mean that we won't be together for the baby. I love your daughter more than anything." _

"_If that was true, you would have kept it in your pants till you were both out of school and working, Renee said snidely. _

"_ENOUGH!" Bella shouted. "We are having a baby get over it. It's our lives. Our decisions. We will make them and deal with the consequences on our own. We just wanted to tell you that the baby was happening. , Yes we know it happened sooner than expected, but we love each other and we want our baby. So get over it." she told them all before stomping away. _

"_What she said." Edward said._

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"_It wasn't supposed to be like this," Bella said as she lay in her childhood bed. _

"_What do you mean?" Edward asked as he lay beside her. _

"_They weren't supposed to be this upset. They were supposed to be happy, hell, they have been planning our wedding since we were three." She told him with a sniffle. _

"_I know, baby, I know." He replied. "Maybe, they will calm down once it sets in that we are having this baby with or without them." _

"_I hope so. I can't imagine doing this without my mom." _

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To this day, Bella still remembered what that argument with their mothers had been like. Neither woman had been happy about the situation; however, Esme had been a bit more level headed about it than Renee. In fact it had been Esme that had kept both Carlisle and Charlie from killing Edward for getting Bella pregnant. In both their fathers' eyes it was all Edward's fault and Bella was just the poor victim.

Eventually, everyone but Renee had gotten over the shock of it and became supportive of Edward and Bella and their decision to keep the baby.

"Grandma didn't want you to have me?" Mason asked.

"No, she wanted us to have you, Mason," Bella said wrapping her arms around her son.

"But, you just said that Grandma Renee wasn't happy that you were pregnant," he said confused.

"She didn't want me to have the baby I was pregnant with," Bella told him

"But, your mom wasn't pregnant with you then, Mase," Edward told him finishing Bella's thought for her.

"What do you mean it wasn't my big brother?" Anthony asked.

"Yeah," Noelle said with a confused look on her face. "What do you mean it wasn't Mason?"

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"_Maybe, this is for the best,." Edward said as he sat on the side of Bella's hospital bed and held her hand._

"_Our baby is gone, Edward. How can you say that?" She asked with tears streaming down her face. _

"_Maybe, this is God's way of telling us that we weren't as ready to be parents as we thought, that he has something bigger and better in store for us," he said wiping her tears away. "You will have my baby, Bella. I promise you that, just not now." _

"_But I wanted this baby Edward, I wanted to be pregnant now and have your baby, have a piece of you to be with me always. I don't want to be alone." She informed him, knowing how busy he would become once he started his residency requirements for med school._

"_I know, my sweet girl. You will have me. I'm not going to be like my father and let my job become more important than my family," he told her. "You will have all of me, and one day, one day soon you'll wear my ring on your finger and have my baby inside of you. You will never be alone, I'll always be with you, even when you are standing in front of your classroom molding the minds of students that would rather be anywhere than in English class." _

"_Promise?"_

"_Of course I promise." He said. "I love you more than any career, Bella, and I will love the future babies you give me just the same." _

"_I love you, Edward," she said as he leaned in to seal his promise with a kiss._

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"So, I would have been the fourth baby?" Anthony asked having not heard this part of the story from his parents before.

"Yep," Bella told him.

"God had other plans," Edward said as he smiled at his family.

"Now, why don't we all get our shoes on and go out to dinner. We will tell you more of the story later." Bella said.

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"_Are you sure this is what you want to do?" Edward asked Bella as they packed up the rest of the stuff from her parents' house. _

"_Yes," she said. "I can't take much more of them hovering over me. You would have thought I'd lost the baby yesterday, not six months ago. It's better this way." _

"_At least you'll be closer to me this way, although I still wish you'd move in with me." he quipped as they tapped the box up._

"_Edward, we talked about this," she said, grabbing his hands. "I would love to live with you, but you're just starting med school, and you need to focus. I don't want to be more of distraction than I already am." she said with a laugh. "I promise though, you'll see me as much as you want as long as your studies are done. I won't be that far away. Rose only lives twenty minutes away from you and Jasper." _

"_I know, but what about when Jasper moves in with Alice? Then, what am I going to do for a roommate?" he asked wrapping his arms around her. _

"_Baby, we can cross that bridge when we get to I,." she replied standing onto her tip toes to kiss him. _

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"Tell me again how daddy asked you," twenty- three year old Noelle asked her mother as they sat together.

"You always ask me that when something big is about to happen," she told her daughter.

"I know, but I've loved this story since I was a little girl. I love hearing how he did it. It makes me smile," She told her mother.

"You and your brothers have to know this story by heart, baby girl." she said sweeping a piece of hair off her daughter's forehead. "Why do you like it so much Noey?"

"It's my history, the story of the greatest love I've ever known. The story of how my parents got to his point." She told her mother. "I see the way daddy looks at you, and I want that. I want a man to look at me like I'm the only woman in the room. That I'm what he needs to breathe. Nana Esme told me that daddy has always looked at you like that."

"He's my world, Noey," she explained. "Your father is my air, and I know that I could never live without him, the times that we were apart in our lives only confirmed it for me. Your father and I had a lot of ups and downs. Not just losing our first baby, but bumps in the road that we thought for sure we'd never overcome."

"But, you did. I remember Aunt Rose telling me that for a while she really thought that you and daddy were done for good. That you'd finally reached your breaking point with his work schedule during his last years of medical school and residency," Noelle told her. "She thought for sure that you'd be living with her and Uncle Emmett forever."

"There was a time when I thought I would too. I knew that your father wanted to be a doctor more than anything, so I took a backseat to his dreams. I told him I'd wait for him, I meant it, but it got hard when he was always in the lab or studying, a it got worse during his residency," she said thinking back to that time and remembering how hard it had been to be away from Edward so much. "The final straw for me came when his lab partner, Kate, seemed more important than me. I accused your father of cheating on me with Kate, even though I had no proof. I hurt your father and he walked away. We didn't talk for months."

"I didn't know this," Noelle said surprised.

"No, we didn't tell you guys this part of our story. We didn't want you to know that we almost didn't make it. If we hadn't then there wouldn't have been the three of you,." she said sadly, "and I for one couldn't imagine my life without my three babies."

"We're not babies anymore momma."

"No, you are all adults, but in my heart you will always be my babies," she said to her daughter as she placed a kiss on her temple. "You'll always be my curious little girl."

"I'm still curious momma. I think I always will be."

"I hope so, Noelle Elizabeth, I certainly hope so." Bella said.

"So, tell me how you and daddy went from being apart to him asking you to spend your life with him," Her curious daughter said.

"We were apart for six months, then Rose and Emmett invited your father over for Thanksgiving at their house, and he accepted. He missed me as much as I missed him. We started talking, and he told me that he would never cheat on me. Even all those times we'd broken up throughout college, he had never once kissed or slept with another woman. He had always known that I was it for him. He'd just been an ass and had never shown me," she said. "I believed him of course, because I knew he was the person I was meant to spend forever with. I knew what I couldn't live without and he was the number one thing on that list."

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"_Hey," he said walking into the bedroom she was staying in at her sister's house. _

"_Hi," she said, smiling up at him before patting the bed next to her offering him somewhere to sit._

"_I can't believe it's Christmas already,." he said as he pulled her into his arms as she flipped the channels on the TV in the room._

"_I know, I swear it was just Thanksgiving yesterday," she answered laying her head against his shoulder. _

"_I liked Thanksgiving." _

"_You did huh?" she questioned._

"_I did. You know why?" _

"_No, why?" _

"_Because I got the love of my life back," he told her. "I got the chance to apologize for making her feel like I wasn't with her anymore. I got to tell her how much I love her and only her. Always have and always will. I thought I had lost her for good this time, so having another chance was the greatest Thanksgiving I could ask for." _

"_You didn't',." Bella said shifting to look at him. "I wouldn't have stayed away. I was really close to breaking and coming to find you, making you talk to me. I needed to apologize for accusing you of cheating on me with Kate. I knew you would never do that to me; I just missed you so much and never realized how hard it was going to be while you were in med school. I guess I felt left behind." _

"_Never, Bella," he told her. "That was why I went to school at UW, as I didn't want to leave you. It was never my intention to make you feel that way. I'm so sorry, baby." _

"_I know. It was my own insecurities. I pushed you away and it killed me when you walked away. You took my heart with you when you left, I seriously thought I was going to die of a broken heart,." she told him. "I wanted to go to you then, but Rose told me to give you some time to calm down. Then the longer I waited and the longer you didn't call, I realized that it was truly over and that crushed me, I felt like my breathe had been stolen away."_

"_I wanted to call you so many times over those months. I was afraid that no matter what I said, you would never believe that I didn't want Kate. I had never wanted her, and that you were the only woman in the world I would ever want. So, I kept putting it off and putting it off, even when Jasper tried to tell me he'd seen you heartbroken. I continued to stay away, wanting to make a clean break," he said. "Then Emmett showed up and my door and basically told me what an ass I was. I had either to come and fight for you or lose you, because Rose was ready to make you start dating again just to get you out of the house. I realized then that I was about to lose my happiness. So, when they told me to come for Thanksgiving, I did. I came with the intent to get my girl back." _

"_And you did,." she said._

"_And I did," he told her before kissing her. _

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"And he asked you after that?" Noelle asked after hearing a part of her parent's story she hadn't before.

"No, impatient girl. He didn't ask me that night," she informed her.

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"_Hey, baby," Edward said as he walked into Bella's room. He dropped his bag by the door and joined her on the bed. "What are you watching?" _

"_Some vampire movie. Twilight or something," Bella told him. "Not really watching, it's more on for noise." _

"_Ah," he said leaning down to kiss her. "Can I watch with you?" _

"_Sure," she said moving over to make room for him on the bed. "Long day?" _

"_Not really. Just did some rotations in the ER shadowing my dad," he said leaning over to kiss her neck softly. _

"_What are you up to mister," Bella asked with a shiver as his lips moved across her neck. _

"_Kissing my girl's neck," he said with a laugh. "My new way of saying hello to my beautiful girl." _

"_Okay," she said leaning her head to the side to give him more access. _

"_I love you," he said pulling back from her, "So much it hurts sometimes." _

"_I know, I love you just as much." _

_Gathering her into his arms once again, he pulled her back to lean against the headboard with him. He reached down and intertwined their hands as they watched the movie that was on the TV. Smiling, Bella turned to look at him, watching as he became enraptured in the movie playing before them. She couldn't help the feeling of calm that settled over her. It was a feeling she'd been getting since they had gotten back together on Thanksgiving Day. It was now five days into the New Year and Bella knew that this year would be different. This year she wouldn't let her insecurities get the best of her. She'd support Edward as he worked hard in medical school so that he could get the best residency choice ever. _

"_Bella," Edward said, breaking the silence that had filtered into the room as they watched the movie. "Would you like to spend the rest of your life with me?" _

"_You know I would," she said as she turned to look at him._

"_Will you?" he asked again as he reached into his pocket. _

"_Are you asking what I think you're asking?" she said as her eyes went from his face to his hands and then back to his face._

"_I am," he informed her. "I'm asking you, here and now, to spend the rest of your life with me. Be my friend, my lover, my life….be my wife, Bella." _

"_Yes," she said softly as tears started to fall. "Always, yes." _

_Edward smiled as he placed her ring on her finger before wrapping her into his arms and kissing her with all the love he could put into a kiss. _

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"Do you think daddy told that part of your story to Ryan?" Noelle asked

"It's possible, baby," Bella said as she affixed the veil to her daughter's hair. "Why do you ask?"

"Because the exact words that Ryan said to me when he asked me to marry him were '_Noelle Elizabeth would you spend the rest of your life with me?_' and then he showed me the ring. Just like daddy did," she said staring at her mother in the mirror.

"When Ryan asked your father for your hand in marriage, he might have told him. Perhaps he could have asked his father, Jasper knows the story of how your father proposed. He is your father's best friend after all," Bella told her daughter.

"Possibly," Noelle said as she stared at her reflection.

"It doesn't matter how he asked you, Noelle. What matters is that he asked, you said yes and that you both love each other enough to make this commitment," she told her daughter as a tear slipped down her cheek at the thought that in just a few moments her baby was getting married.

"Just like you and daddy," Noelle said, turning to smile at her mother as her father entered the room.

"Just like me and mommy what?" Edward asked.

"Ryan asked me to marry him the same way you asked mommy," Noelle said, "and we love each other just as much as you and mommy did."

"He does, sweet girl," Edward said. "He loves you as much as I love your mother that is why I told him that he could marry you."

"He's my forever love," she said smiling at her parents before going over to speak with her bridesmaids.

"You're my forever love, Isabella Marie Cullen," Edward said smiling at his wife.

"As you are mine," she replied, placing her hands on his chest.

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"Tell us how Grandpa asked you Nana." Charlie said as she climbed into Bella's lap.

"Yes, tell us the story of u," Allison said as she was pulled into her grandfather's lap.

"Yeah mom, tell us the story of how daddy asked you to marry him," Mason asked as he, Noelle and Anthony watched their parents smile at them and their families.

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A/N: Thank you for taking this quick journey with me. I hope you enjoyed watching as Bella and Edward shared their story with their children through the years.


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